Any passionate students?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
1

<p>If you are at Stanford and are really passionate about it, can you please tell me some good things about your school? </p>

<p>Stanford seldom accepts people from my HS and the $95 app fee irritates me. Additionally, all the questions on the supp also annoy me. Is it worth applying and knowing that you have a 93% chance of getting rejected?</p>

2

<p>No one from my county has ever been accepted to a top 25 school. “Stanford seldom accepts students from my HS” means nothing. If you think the application is a bother and you aren’t going to be accepted, there is no reason to apply. There are plenty f great things about Stanford that we would be willing to talk about, but first YOU have to decide if it is worth applying.</p>

3

<p>if you are:

  1. annoyed by the questions
    and 2. scared that the statistics make it not worth applying</p>

<p>then maybe it’s not for you. there are thousands of students who really want to be at Stanford. BUT, i don’t think it’s necessarily true. in my opinion, you just haven’t found your reason(s) yet. research more of the university, academics, ECs, community, different opportunities. SOMETHING is bound to be attractive enough for you to set aside the fear of the statistics and just go for it. </p>

<p>the only way to have a 100% chance of not getting in is to not apply. i’d say 7.2% admit rate beats 0% any day.</p>

<p>to answer your question…these are just a few things i LOVE about stanford:

  1. the community: the people are amazing and just completely different from the east coast elite schools (ivy and non-ivy). you will not find the same community anywhere else.
  2. academics: what’s not to love? stanford is amazing in almost every department (with the exception of the arts, in which they are not amazing but still great). The faculty are basically some of the best in the world.
  3. Emphasis on public service/community service in almost every department
  4. Stanford in Washington and the different Study Abroad programs
  5. Quarter system lets you take way more classes (i might change my mind after I see how difficult it is to keep up)
  6. the balance between ECs, academics, and everything else
  7. you still get the “normal” college experience more so than Stanford’s peer institutions, with the athletic culture, etc.
  8. interaction across classes, races, cultures, and everything: general welcoming atmosphere
  9. financial aid <3
  10. I loved the application</p>

<p>also, i’m not there yet, but i will be soon :)</p>

4

<p>^couldnt agree more with you :)</p>

5

<p>These are a few of my favorite things:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>The campus is huge and beautiful. Spanish missionary architecture is ehhh but somehow it works. The weather is great, even if the winter can be a downer (well, isn’t that the point of winter?).</p></li>
<li><p>In terms of GERs, there aren’t many, and there are a lot of good options for the non-humanities or non-science inclined.</p></li>
</ol>

6

<p>I am absolutely in love with my beautiful school.</p>

<p>My two favorite things (because the full list is basically endless) are:</p>

<p>1) My peers. I love the fact that at Stanford, distinct from any other top school at which I have spent time, people just seem like nice, smart, outgoing, kids for months. It is only accidentally, when their name pops up in the New York Times or your biology textbook, or after someone else brings it up, that you learn that they are a nationally famous chess player, a modern medical miracle, a world record breaking ski diver, a Saudi prince, etc. It’s not that people hide things about themselves, it’s just that they never feel the need to boast about accomplishments or fame. It’s understood that everyone here is amazing in some way; they wouldn’t be here otherwise, so there is little need to prove yourself.</p>

<p>2) Along the lines of my first point, and the previous comments about financial aid and community, I love how Stanford does not feel divided by financial background. Not only in terms of tuition, but even when it comes to summer internships and school activities, Stanford goes to great lengths to make sure money isn’t an issue.</p>

7

<p>OP, veggie delight is right, the list of reasons for passionately loving Stanford seems endless, but I will add my personal top reason, which is this: Stanford is devoted to What’s Next. Although I have legacy at Harvard and Princeton, and stats often described as beastly, I found myself disinterested in those schools because it seems to me they mainly look back as a means of positioning themselves. Stanford’s century+ of illustrious history is plenty for me to consider it well established; now, the question is: What’s Next (in higher ed, in technology, in the world)? </p>

<p>My other big reason relates to a feature of many of the students and faculty, and that is a sense of genuine self-confidence and being grounded. During visits to Stanford’s peer schools, I always detected a sense of anxiousness among the students and of trying a little too hard to impress one another; it’s kind of hard to describe, but there was none of that feeling at Stanford. The students there seem comfortable with themselves, but not smug; very motivated, but not driven to distraction. The faculty also give the sense that there is no place they would rather be. </p>

<p>There are lots of videos online (on sites that we apparently aren’t allowed to reference on this site for some reason) where Stanford students describe the atmosphere in detail, so you might have a look for those on google or youtube. Good luck.</p>